Tracee Ellis Ross May Appear Less in ‘Black-ish’ Due to Unequal Pay

Award winning actress Tracee Ellis Ross might be the next Hollywood actress to join the watershed movement for pay equality.

In its story about the way women are fighting for equal pay for equal work in Hollywood titled, ‘Sharing Salaries: How Actresses Are Fighting Hollywood’s Gender Pay Disparity With Transparency,’ The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Ross makes significantly less than her black-ish co-star Anthony Anderson. The actress is in the process of negotiations for her fifth season contract and is arguing if the show can’t bring her up to Anderson’s pay level, she’ll do less episodes to allow her to appear as a guest star on other shows to make up the pay difference.

The wage gap in Hollywood has been a hot topic as of late, especially due to the Mark Wahlberg/Michelle Williams fiasco where it was uncovered that the All the Money in the World actress was given $80 per diem for 10 days while Wahlberg got a whopping $1.5 million for reshooting the film after Kevin Spacey got kicked out of the film. Not to mention, she was paid $625,000 for her entire work while he took home $5 million.

black-ish revolves around an upper-middles-class African-American family. Since the first four season of the sitcom, Ross and Anderson have been nominated for several Emmys and Golden Globes. However, Anderson has never won any of his Emmy or Golden Globe nominations.

Ross, on the other hand, won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical TV Series in 2017. This was a huge accomplishment because she became the first Black woman to win a Golden Globe in that category in 35 years. The last Black woman to take home the award was Debbie Allen for her role in the 1982 NBC series, Fame.

Check out the below for more details on the issue from The Hollywood Reporter:

With negotiations for the fifth season ongoing, sources say Ellis Ross feels that if she isn’t brought up to Anderson’s level, she may opt to appear in fewer episodes to make up the disparity by guesting on another show. The tactic has split opinions within Time’s Up, with some worried that it’s more a retreat than a forward-looking solution (fitting in extra work isn’t always feasible, and often an actress wouldn’t earn as much guesting as she would as a network star). A network source says a new deal will significantly increase her compensation and cautioned that Anderson and Ellis Ross’ roles aren’t equal given that he has been attached to Black-ish from the start and is an executive producer. Still, until a few weeks ago, this type of candid conversation would never have taken place outside an actress’ agency.

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The HBR Media Team is a collective group of black women filmmakers, writers, and studio/network executives who are passionate about bringing visibility to women of African descent working in film and television.